The Care and Keeping of Your Time Lord
by Spoofmaster
Summary: Set after the events of The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords. The Doctor finds a somewhat...unconventional...way to "keep" the Master onboard his TARDIS.
1. Prologue

The first thing the Master noticed when he awoke was that his surroundings didn't even begin to resemble the interior of a gaudy ring. What was even more worrying, though, was that they also failed to resemble the cockpit of the warp ship he had hidden in the secret bunker under his country home. This ruled out the successful completion of Plans B and C, and as he hadn't had a Plan D, this was of rather great concern to him.

The second thing the Master noticed, after having spent a few minutes looking around at the hideous wallpaper and the cheap-looking furniture of the bedroom in which he found himself, was that a rather poorly made teddy bear had been tucked into bed with him. He pulled it out from under the covers and threw it across the room before sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He felt lightheaded when he stood up, but considering the fact that he had been shot, waking up in the same body with only a bit of dizziness was an astounding lack of consequences.

The third thing the Master noticed was that one entire side of the room was fenced off with a wall of tightly knit chain link material from floor to ceiling that blocked off the normal wall behind it. There was a crack in the floor and the other walls just past where they were blocked off by the mesh, but nothing to indicate why the Doctor (the Master had come to the conclusion that wherever he was, the Doctor was responsible—the alternative, that there was more than one being in the universe who would tuck the Master into bed with a teddy bear while he was unconscious, did not bear thinking about) would want to forbid him access to one of the walls.

The fourth thing the Master noticed, when he went to get some water, was that the fixtures in the bathroom he found adjoining the room in which he had awoken were not connected to any plumbing. Even stranger, they appeared to be solid chunks of plastic, precluding any possibility of the faucets ever having functioned in the first place. He broke one of the faucet handles off of the sink, more out of annoyance than any belief that it would improve the increasingly bizarre situation in which he found himself, before going back out into the bedroom. He had seen a door to another room earlier, and steered toward that.

Just then, though, the entire house gave a little shake and the wall behind the mesh began to fall—no, _swing_—away, leaving an entire side of the room open to the outside but for the chain link still in place. The Master boggled as the Doctor, his face as tall as the Master's body, hove into view. The Doctor grinned, a sappy look in his eyes, and the Master felt a little sick.

That was probably because he'd just realized that he was standing inside a dollhouse.


	2. In Which the Master Is in Dire Straits

Long enough between updates for you? :| At least I'm back to writing. After this chapter, we can start getting into all the actual ideas I had for this thing. It's looking like this is mostly going to be a series of vignettes, so I'm sort of just trying to get it set up right now.

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The Master stared at the gigantic face of the Doctor on the other side of the mesh wall with his mouth agape for a few seconds before he caught himself and schooled his expression into one of annoyance. He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, but if anything, the Doctor only looked even more pleased.

"Good morning, sleepyhead!" chirped the Doctor in a voice that was incredibly annoying and condescending, even for him. "Didjoo have a good nap, then? Didjoo?"

"I don't think anything that starts with me being shot and ends with me apparently having been shrunk can legitimately be called a 'nap,'" replied the Master dryly. "And stop talking like that. You sound like an idiot."

"_Someone_ woke up on the wrong side of the bed," grinned the Doctor, unabashed. "Listen, I've worked this all out, and you don't need to worry about a thing. All it took was a little jiggery-pokery, and voila! Not only are you alive again, but now you can fit in your own little house!"

"I had a house before," replied the Master, showing what he was sure had to be an incredible amount of restraint. "It didn't have a back wall that swung open for the benefit of giant peeping toms. I rather liked it that way."

"We can make this work," the Doctor went on, ignoring the Master's protests. "I already told you—you're my responsibility, and I'm going to watch over you and protect the universe from you. And, well, protect you from the universe—if you got away _now_ you'd probably be eaten by a cat."

"You can't do this!" shouted the Master, finally losing his temper. "You can't just keep a person—a _Time Lord_—in a dollhouse!"

The Doctor leaned forward to rest his chin on one hand, smirking at the Master from a shorter distance and looking him up and down in a manner that was all too proprietary. "Would you have preferred a birdcage? I couldn't find one on such short notice, but I could always go shopping."

The Master spluttered for a moment. "You sanctimonious git! You go on about justice and the inalienable rights of sentients, and then the moment it becomes inconvenient for you you're off committing genocide or stuffing people into cages! At least I'm _honest_ about what I am!"

"Oh, come here," cooed the Doctor, apparently oblivious to the Master's complaints as he reached up and unlatched the roof of the little house. The Master stopped mid-rant as he saw the roof swing up and out of the way, frozen for a moment as he watched the Doctor shift forward to loom over the top of the building. Swearing, the Master dashed for the stairs, hoping that once he was downstairs he would be out of reach.

Suddenly, though, the Doctor's hand was in front of him, blocking off the entire stairwell. He nearly ran right onto the upturned palm before he backpedaled, not sure where he would run to next beyond a few vague thoughts about possibly finding a piece of furniture tall enough for him to crawl under. Much to his dismay, however, the Doctor's other hand made an unexpected appearance right behind him, and before he'd even managed to finish turning around, he was scooped up and lifted out of the dollhouse.

"Theeere we are," breathed the Doctor, bringing his other hand up so that he could gently move the Master into a position that allowed him to keep a good grip on the tiny Time Lord without hurting him. "See? This isn't so bad, is it?"

"PUT ME DOWN!" wailed—er, _shouted_ the Master, his arms wrapping around the Doctor's fingers, hands clutching at the little hairs on the Doctor's knuckles despite the wave of revulsion that automatically swept through the Master at the very thought of it. He closed his eyes, trying to pretend either that he was not dangling the equivalent of forty feet off the ground now that he was no longer above the table on which the dollhouse sat, or at least that his latest regeneration had not come with a debilitating (but not entirely irrational, he thought) fear of heights.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and brought the Master closer to his face. "Something wrong? Only you're looking a little green."

"Put me down!" yelled the Master again. He opened his eyes, stared at the Doctor's much larger eyes with as steady a gaze as he could summon, and resorted to old tactics. "I am the Master, and you will obey me!"

"Oh, there it is, the hypnosis. Not that it'll actually _work_, but it does bring back memories." The Doctor did not seem particularly mesmerized or intimidated by the Master's efforts, if the goofy grin on his face or the way he affectionately rubbed the Master's hair with a fingertip was anything to go by. The situation was growing more dire by the moment, and the Master saw only one option still available to him.

There was nothing else for it. He reached up, grabbed the finger that was patting him on the head, pulled it toward him (or himself toward it), and bit into the Doctor's skin as hard as he could.

The major flaw in this plan (other than that it involved tasting the Doctor's skin, which he immediately regretted) revealed itself to the Master when the Doctor gave a surprised jerk (though he'd come nowhere close to breaking the skin) and he felt the enormous fingers holding him instinctually loosen as if to drop him. He clung to the Doctor's hand, and found, to his disgust, that he was actually _grateful_ when the dunce managed not to let go of him. His annoyance at both himself and the Doctor couldn't stop him from shivering, though, or loosen his death grip on his enemy's fingers.

"Did you just try to _bite_ me?" asked the Doctor, clearly surprised, as he examined his uninjured finger. It was obvious his reaction had been one of surprise rather than actual pain, and now that he was over it, he carefully readjusted his grip on the Master once more. "Bit undignified, don't you think? Especially since you're too titchy to break the skin, honestly."

"You can't do this!" howled the Master, who felt rather strongly about this point. He didn't try to bite or squirm away again, though, realizing now that being dropped was not, after all, what he really wanted.

The Doctor's expression sobered and seemed to harden at that, and he was silent for a moment as he used his free hand to pull out a chair so he could sit down at the table on which the dollhouse sat. The look he gave the Master now as he clasped him between both hands, resting them on the table but not allowing the Master any room in which to move as he spoke to him, was one which would have terrified a lesser being. As for the Master, he held firmly to the opinion that the Doctor was nothing but a self-righteous halfwit, no matter how piercing that gaze was or how much he wanted to wriggle away. He let his feelings of indignation against the Doctor burn, preferring anger to the current alternatives.

"I think you'll find that I can and I have," said the Doctor firmly. "You've killed billions of people, taken over dozens of planets, turned me into a gnome…you don't even stay dead when you've been killed. I could have let you let yourself die, burned your body, and you'd just be back again tomorrow by some new trick. No," he said, gaze steely, "No. This is the way it has to be."

"Always the man with the plan," sneered the Master, not about to let the Doctor think that he was in the least bit cowed by this display. "Tell me, Doctor, how long do you really think it'll be before I kill you in your sleep?"

The Doctor blinked once, twice. The Master felt his mouth widen into a grin, thinking of it. He'd had the Doctor under his thumb before, and he would again, no matter how bleak the current situation might look—that or he'd finally kill the idiot, put an end to it once and for all. He was still grinning when, a few moments later, the worst thing possible happened.

The Doctor laughed. It wasn't even a deliberately cruel or evil laugh—oh, no. It was a laugh of genuine amusement, and it stung the Master to the core.

"How?" asked the full-sized Time Lord, still grinning at him though the Master's own expression had frozen. "Are you going to smother me by jamming your entire body into my nasal cavity? You know I have a respiratory bypass. Best-case scenario, too, you'll have to kill me at least twice, and my regeneration would blast you clear across the room. By the time you could even make back to the bed, I'd be up and trapping you under a glass."

The Master's hands clenched into fists out of sight, still buried under the Doctor's fingers. "I'll make your life a living hell!" he spat furiously, struggling to pull his arms free, to kick, or _anything_. "I'll make sure you regret this for the rest of your miserable life, Doctor!"

"'Course you will," chuckled the Doctor in a manner that did not at all reassure the Master that his warning had been received and taken to heart. One finger came loose to rub gently at the back of the Master's head, further mussing his short hair. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't try. You'll see, though, soon enough—I really do have it all planned out."

The gentleness of the Doctor's movements as he carefully lifted the Master up and deposited him back in the top floor of the dollhouse only drove home the hopelessness of his situation. The former ruler of Earth made a show of straightening his clothes and flattening his hair once he was put down, barely containing the seething fury inside of him.

"I'll let you get settled in," said the Doctor, unperturbed by the look of raw hatred being sent his way. "Water bottle's downstairs, and I'll come back with your dinner in a while. If you're good, I might bring you a video player so you can watch your Teletubbies later."

The Master's only response, no matter how great the appeal of the Doctor's promise of Teletubbies, was to turn away and mutter, "I _will _kill you." The Doctor merely smiled again and latched the roof shut before sliding the wall outside the mesh back into place.

"You're not going anywhere," he said, peeking in at the window, "so I suggest you get used to it." From the thumping sound, the Master guessed that he gave the house itself a pat before he pulled away and stood up to walk away. "I'll see you at dinnertime."


End file.
